


acclimation to routine

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After that, the media’s all over the stupid Chapman-Lourdes rivalry, and it’s no one but David’s fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	acclimation to routine

**Author's Note:**

> As always, [tumblr!](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Much thanks to Clo.

After that, the media’s all over the stupid Chapman-Lourdes rivalry, and it’s no one but David’s fault. He can’t even blame Lourdes, because his only response when asked about David’s quote was a bit of a smirk and a comment that his play was showing how irrelevant he was. Which was arrogant as shit, maybe, but nothing the media wasn’t saying already, nothing David could even argue, not when he was still trying to catch up. Or, not even to catch up, just to make his own place. Preferably with Lourdes not still ahead of him. 

But November ticks into December, and things start getting better. His grandmother always told him living well was the best revenge, and if that applies to playing well, then David’s nailed it. The Panthers still seem to be employing their ‘We’ll go down but we’ll fuck up your goalie’s GAA while we’re doing it’ strategy, rarely pulling a win out of the mess, but the Islanders have gotten tighter, cleaner. They’re still on the wrong side of playoff berth, and David’s pretty sure that’s where they’re going to sit all season, but if you compare them to a team like the Panthers, they come out looking pretty damn good. Knutsen’s less likely to melt down after a bad goal than he was a month ago, everyone knows each other well enough to start anticipating passes better, and Brouwer’s leaving guys in smears against the boards whenever he’s out, which tends to negatively impact their offense. They’re not a good team, they’re not one by a longshot, but at least they’re getting better.

They’re all playing decent hockey out there, and David isn’t the exception, tends, instead, to be held out as the example, his points totals ticking right back up to averaging a point a game. They’ve played a stretch of mediocre and bad teams, and David has no illusions that he’ll perform at that level when they head west for a backbreaking trip after the Christmas break, that any of them will, but it feels good in the moment, and better because he’s creeping up to where Lourdes is, Lourdes’ points production dropping, victim to frequent line-changes, maybe, David doesn’t give a shit, just content with the fact it’s _dropped_. And that the media’s dropped their shit as well, a little less interested in Lourdes when he isn’t performing, a little more interested in David’s actual merits because he _is_ performing, and they’ve almost shut up about any rivalry bullshit, right up until the Panthers host the Isles, almost a month exactly since their last meeting.

It’s their second in two days, and they’re feeling decent enough coming into it, came out on top of Tampa in a close game the night before. The Sunshine State’s doing enough to raise the team’s spirits all by itself, and even David isn’t immune to it, wanders outside the hotel, baseball hat on mostly to shield his face from the glare, because it’s not like he’s going to get recognized here, not like the game in Ottawa a week ago, where he’d gotten a hometown salute and had a mob of pretty girls in down coats waiting, like he was a member of the home team. It was flattering, but it was weird too, and he prefers this, looks like any other pale as sin tourist soaking in the sun.

They’re varying degrees of sun-stupid when they gather for a quick practice, more a pre-warm up than anything else, because there isn’t the time and they don’t want to wear their legs out. They’re accordingly varying degrees of slow and lackadaisical, and maybe David should have taken that as a bad sign, but he didn’t. 

If their last game against Florida was a clusterfuck, this is a bloodbath. Hamburg lets in two in the first five minutes, and that’s just a sign of things to come. By midway through the second, it’s 4-0, Knutsen’s relieved Hamburg at the net, looking murderous again, and they’ve spent the majority of the game in their zone, playing a frantic defensive game, which is really, really not their strength. It’s not the Panthers’ either, but they don’t need it to be tonight, not with the way they keep driving in, peppering the net, keeping the Isles a reactionary team instead of an active one, and on a rare chance to get it back into the Panthers zone, David skates it in instead of bothering with chip and chase, knows where that will lead.David’s just past the blue line when he’s crushed against the boards at an awkward angle that brings him down, winded, gasping, his shoulder throbbing, and it’s less than no surprise when it’s Lourdes who gets called for boarding.

Their trainer comes up to him once he’s back on the bench, but there’s nothing to be done but to play through the dull twinge. It’s nothing serious, but it’s just another piss-off in a game of piss-offs, and David almost wishes he was the kind of player who would go after guys, who could go after guys, who could stack up. Brouwer lurks around Lourdes instead, at least until Florida’s enforcer takes him on once Brouwer’s gotten one too many cheap-shots in, and the mostly empty arena rings with cheers once again, like they’ve ever fucking stopped. 

At the end of the game it’s 7-1, and everyone shuffles in quiet, Knutsen and Hamburg white-faced and grim, the rest of them keeping their heads down to avoid their eyes. The Panthers had 50 shots against, the Isles 16, and everyone knows whose fault this is. David’s sore when he’s pulling off his pads, and sore when he’s showering, and sore when he’s getting back into his game day suit, and he wishes they were at home, wishes he could sink into an ice bath after his shower, take some of the ache away, the throb of his shoulder and the dull exhaustion of the rest of him, but instead he just looks forward to getting back to his hotel room, locking Howard out of the bathroom, drawing a bath and trying to drown himself. He’s actively longing for it.

Instead he has to bat away the media, gives them nothing, this time, and lets them swarm around the Isles goalies like flies on a carcass, gets out as fast as he can, but gets stopped in the hall by Jake fucking Lourdes leaning against the wall like he belongs there, which, since he’s in front of the visitor’s room, he decidedly does _not_. 

David considers just pushing right past him, doesn’t have the patience for this, but instead he stops. “What,” he says, flat.

“You okay?” Lourdes asks. “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”

His face is serious, but David feels like there’s a smirk just in the way he’s talking, something smug, pointing out that he knocked David down, pointing out that there was a rout, and David was on the wrong fucking end of it, Lourdes so _magnanimous_ with victory. David is sore, and he’s pissed, and he’s sick of him, hasn’t talked to Lourdes since they were drafted, has never said more than a few sentences to him in his entire life, but he’s still sick of him, he’s so sick of Jake Lourdes and his shadow that he could scream. 

“Are you serious right now?” David asks. “You come by after a fucking rout to say _sorry for hurting me_?”

Lourdes looks confused for a second. “I’m not going to apologize for winning,” he says after a pause. “If that’s what you’re asking for.”

David grits his teeth. “I’m not asking for anything from you,” he snaps.

“Okay,” Lourdes says, puts his palms up, placating, and David wants to punch him in his stupid fucking dumb as shit face. Even more because he seems to genuinely mean what he’s saying, in which case, he’s as fucking stupid as he looks. “Look,” Lourdes says. “I really am sorry, okay. I know the media’s been, like, obsessing about us and all, but I really didn’t mean anything by it. I don’t even get it, you don’t play anything like me.”

David’s kind of torn between vehement agreement, because at least someone’s finally noticed, and arguing, just because the idea of agreeing with Lourdes leaves a bad taste in his mouth, especially when his shoulder’s still throbbing. “Fine,” he says, instead. 

Lourdes frowns. It’s almost a pout. David bets some girl told him he looked cute like that and he kept doing it, but it just makes him look even more confused. David wonders if that’s his natural mental state. He wouldn’t be surprised. He would never make assumptions about a player’s level of intelligence based on play style, Brouwer schooled them all at Scrabble once Farmer somehow convinced him to play, but David would be shocked if Lourdes had cracked a book since he’d graduated high school. Unless magazines count. 

“We cool?” Lourdes asks. 

“We’re fine,” David grits out, and Lourdes looks contented by that, goes to clap his hand against David’s shoulder before he visibly stops. 

“Um,” Lourdes says, pulls his hands back and stuffs them in his pockets. “Cool. See you in February?”

“Looking forward to it,” David says, and he is, just so they can wipe the Panthers across the ice. 

When he gets back to the room he shares with Howard, he doesn’t even have the energy for a bath, doesn’t have the energy for anything, just changes into sleep bottoms and goes to the far bed, which Howard, thankfully, takes as a sign to leave the room. He doesn’t want to do anything but sleep, but once the lights are out and the room’s quiet, he’s wide awake, sore, pissed, everything still held tight in him. He finds his bag in the dark, swallows a couple Tylenol dry, rotates his shoulder, slow, enough to shake some of the stiffness but not enough to make anything worse. Jaw held tight until he notices he’s clenching it, then he struggles to relax it, which is a bit of a losing proposition.

The worst thing, the worst part of the whole night, the bloodbath, the dirty hit, the dark mood that’s hovering over the entire team, the worst fucking thing is that, after all that, Lourdes still made David look like the asshole. After all that, David’s the one lying in the dark, thinking about it, while Lourdes is probably out celebrating with his team, getting fistbumps for his two points, managing to pull girls not because he’s a hockey player, but because he’s got a stupid, dopey smile David bets works for him just as well as everything else does. The worst part is that David’s lying here, dwelling on it, and Lourdes has as good as admitted he doesn’t think of David at all.


End file.
